So Sanpoku is my tiny little town and so when the cherry blossoms were out there were two little festival things. One wasn't actually in my town but the one just inside the mountains (Nakagatsugi?). And that was a simpler, there are a few booths of the locals selling stuff (mainly mountain veggies, but not many had come up yet b/c of the colder weather in the mountains, and some other handmade stuff) and an area to eat a box lunch. A lot of the people there—as is true w/ the people closer to my house—are the parents/relatives of my students. So they were happy to see me go to their little town, esp since 5+ years ago they used to have an elementary school so the ALT of the area went to their town on a regular basis; but now the schools are grouped into two bigger ones so no more regular visits from an ALT :p. But anyhoo, it was really nice seeing them and it was lovely out, though sadly the blossoms were still just buds—these cherry trees are more like weeping willow trees, very beautiful—esp when in full bloom. But I had a nice lunch w/ Sadae-san and then we walked around town a bit. Oh and one of the guys there was really cute ;)…..but as w/ most of them he couldn't speak the best English in the world.
The second area w/ a festival was literally in my town. There were
booths/stalls/stands all up and down this one side street. Some selling food,
some candy, some goldfish or turtles (the turtles were sooo cute XD) and a few
game stands (ring toss, grab a ticket, and such). The students were really surprised and in
general happy to see me, especially the younger ones and the ones that just
graduated. But sadly I couldn't remember all of the names of the ones that had
just graduated L. Though, in my defense in class they always covered up their
notebooks that had their names on it and they changed seats all the time so the
original seating chart quickly loses its use and there are no sheets w/ their
names and faces together, it’s always just names—in kanji which I can’t
read. So needless to say they didn't make it easy for me to learn their names xp….but I still feel bad that I couldn't recall all of their names. I could
remember the chair they sat at before they graduated, but not their name -.-…. That aside, it was really fun and I got an
interesting finger pointer thing that has proven nice during my lessons^^. Oh,
and the students pulled little shrine floats (little shrines set on these things
to be carried around the town) through the town as a sort of parade thing and
they were really happy to see that I saw them having a blast doing such.
Oh, and
while walking around I got corralled by some of the older town folk (most of
which prob committee members of some sort) to sit under their tent where they
offered me all sorts of things. They gave me like 2 cans of ice coffee to
drink, snack packets, giant swiss-cake-roll thing, tried to give me beer, and
bread and such. They were asking all sorts of questions and taking pictures
with me and it was rather nice, though after a while I wanted to go see the
festival some more to see some more students that just started to arrive.
Luckily one of the older ladies sensed that I wanted to go and swept me away,
she said ‘’oh have you seen this little area in town?’’ and dragged me off to
go see the little cemetery in town that’s tucked away behind all the buildings
so you can’t see if from the main road. It was really pretty up there and I hadn't been there before (always hesitant to walk around the alleyways b/c some
are alleys but some are driveways and they look the same xp). She asked me a
few questions but mainly talked about the area and then took me back down to
the back side of the festival stands and said ‘‘excuse us for taking your time’’—or
something to that affect—and ‘‘thanks for chatting with us, please enjoy the
festival’’. So, yay for old ladies that whisk you away so you can return to the
festivities—not that sitting with them was a lot of fun, but w/ it being a nice
day and a festival I didn't exactly want to be sitting around that much :p.
And, yeah, that was that for the most part^^ just some nice, quieter but still
very enjoyable festivities^^.
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